The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-30
HOW WORKiNG-MEN LIVE IN
ITALY.

The assertion Is often made that what
an American housewife wastes or throws
away as worthless would in Europe be
preserved, converted into nutritious food,
and made to support perhaps an entire
family. Whether this assertion is true or
untrue, the question of how the working
man lives in Europe, as compared with
how he lives in America, is interesting.
For year L wore workman's blouse.
and mingled and lived with the working
men of nearly every State in Europe,
from Gibraltar to the Boephorus, and from
the Mediterranean to the cold shores of
the Baltic. Since my return to America
| have engaged in similar investigation
as to the condition of the wage-earners
of my own land.
The cost of living is greater in America
than in any State in Europe. It is ten
to twenty per cent higher than in En-
gland; it is twice as high as in France; it
is three times as expensive as in Italy. Is
this difference in the cost of living COM
mensurate with the difference in wages?
Possibly in England, on the Continent, I
should say, decidedly, the low cost of liv-
ing does not fully compensate for the low
wages received. The European working
man manages to exist by reducing the
standard of living, and buying only such
articles as are absolutely necessary.
There are men in Italy who earn but
seven cents for days work of fourteen
hours-one half cent an hour. Very
few skilled mechanics earn as much as a
dollar day; the average does not exceed
fifty cents. The Italian mechanic man.
ages to get through on this sum, partly
because of the cheapness of living, but
principally because of his wonderful
economy, and happy disposition, that en-
ables him to be satisfied and contented
with conditions at which even an Amer.
lean beggar would rebel.
There is no waste in italian kitchens,
not even in kitchens of the rich. The
refuse of the rich mans kitchen is care
fully stored by the cook, and sold to deal
ers IN second hand food, who in turn
retail it to the poor. This perquisite
forms quite an item in the cooks income.
He dries and sells the coffee grounds
used in his masters coffee; he saves the
drippings of the oil in which the fish are
fried or the meoaroni is cooked, lays by
the shavings and drippings from the can
dies, and for these and similar small odds
and ends receives at least three or four
lire (sixty OF eighty cents) month. The
markets where these articles are sold are
usually on the Piazza, or open square
found in all italian cities. From one
and the same vender may be purchased
almost any article, from picked cucum-
Der TO rusty sword. The market man
squats on the broad smooth stones of the
Piazza with his goods piled around him
old clothes, nails, secondhand food.
dried coffee grounds, candle ends, and
drippings, tools, knives aud forks, rusty
iron bedsteads, and host of other arti-
cles too numerous to mention. 1t is from
such sources that the economical italian
housewife obtains her provisions, her
clothing and her furniture.
The average rent paid by the Italian
working man for bis room, his home and
workshop combined, is twelve to fifteen
dollars year. II he is a stone mason,
or engaged in any other work that does
not require him to make workshop of
his home, he may for the sake of sunshine
and air, pay more-eighteen or twenty
dollars-and take room higher up, on
the third or fourth floor. Those who are
able to do this are not many. The ma
jority must content themselves with the
cheaper rooms in easements and on
ground floors. Unmarried working men,
if not living at home, live in lodgings
where beds cost three or four cents a
night. A very poor laborer will hire for
five cents a double bed-that is, one
about four feet wide-and share it with
a companion, thus making the cost for
each only two and half cents. Some
times as many as thirty sleep in room
not sixteen feet square, the beds being
arranged like hunks, one above the other,
two persons in each bunk, the sleepers
"spooDing" together, packed like sar.
dimes. Lee MeTiloether, IN Rarper's
Magazine for april,